Category: You have to be kidding, right!?!

Okay, maybe my life’s been a little different. I guess not too many people have taken advanced scatology studies from bronze-age warriors — how to identify “friend or foe” by takin’ apart their poop with a twig — or had a monkey pee down their shirt collar while leaning against his tree, tryin’ to grab some Zs.

At the time, I didn’t know I was gathering writing material. I just thought I had an interesting job. Fiction can be fascinating, but for sheer maniacal madness and loose screw lunacy, nothin’ beats reality. Here are some examples.

Weird Crime

Are you sick and tired of hearing about how guns commit crimes, and all the ills of man can be traced back to firearms? Historically, guns are relative Johnny-come-latelies in the field of human homicide. And, people bein’ the crafty kill-crazed critters they are, they’re constantly inventing new ways to whack each other without the benefit of powder and slug.

A new favorite of mine comes to us from Houston, Texas. There, Tammy Jean Warner, 42, was recently charged with killing her 58-year-old husband, Michael — by giving him a sherry enema.

Yep. She hooked up two bottles of sherry to an enema tube, pumped Michael to the max, and raised his blood-alcohol level to a lethal .47 percent, killin’ him deader’n a cockroach on the kitchen floor.

She said she did it because a throat ailment left him unable to drink his favorite sherry, and she was just helpin’ him out. She mighta gotten away with it, but the police learned she had burned Michael’s will the month before.

In that document, he had left the bulk of his assets to a daughter from a previous marriage. It seems Tammy wasn’t happy with that. They took another look.

Yeah, you might think that death by alcohol poisoning may be more pleasant than takin’ two 7.62s in the boiler room and losing your attempt to set a record in the “100-Meter Low Crawl With a Sucking Chest Wound,” but dudes, somehow, the mere thought of death by enema gives me the serious willies. I’ll take the incoming, thank you.

From Across the Pond

For sheer silliness in the Great Gun Debacle, you can’t beat our English cousins. You know about the “armed police” in England, right? After disarming the law-abiding citizens and leaving only criminals armed with guns,

Great Britain soon vaulted to the number-one spot among industrialized nations in armed assaults. This made life a bit sticky for the unarmed bobbies, so the Brits recruited and trained some officers to carry guns and deal with firearm-toting bad guys.

The basic premise is that when the regular “unleaded” bobbies step in some deep kimchee, they pull back and whistle up the armed troops. This should have made things jollier in Liverpool, but the problem is, the zoo is still overseen and operated by gun-hating bureaucrats and fuzzywigged liberal judges.

Time after time, legal decisions have come down against those armed police, ruining careers, emptying their bank accounts, and sometimes jailing them with the crooks they’ve fought. Recently, some of ‘em broke under the last straw.

Let The Games Begin

Police had a tip, including name and description, of an alleged armed Irish terrorist who would be exiting a bar carrying a sawn-off shotgun. The tip later proved to be false and apparently maliciously placed, but the confrontation occurred for real.

There was the suspect, carrying a short, wrapped cylindrical object, and although details are sketchy, it appears that he failed to comply with certain instructions, like dropping the packet and putting his hands up. The officers capped him and he later expired. When the scattergun-like object turned out to be a table leg wrapped in newspaper, the games began.

When the first inquest concluded, the officers were ruled justified, based on the fact that they had acted appropriately on the information they had and the situation they encountered.

This, of course, did not sit well with the Warm-‘n-Fuzzies, who felt that since the outcome was bad, the officers must have done something bad. A second inquest resulted in their suspensions, pending charges. That ruling also paved the way for civil suits with the potential to impoverish their great-grandkiddies. The Fuzzies were tickled. The armed police were not. The message was clear.

By the following Tuesday, 120 of London’s 400 armed police had turned in their guns and firearms authorization cards. Carry guns and incur grave risk for a society that wouldn’t back them up? No, thanks. They decided that the courts and bureaucrats were far more dangerous than the armed criminals they might face.

BBC Fuzz

The same week, I reviewed a news article about the explosive growth and “effectiveness” of Britain’s most feared and hated law enforcement agency — the Telly Police.

In England, if you own a TV, it is presumed you watch the BBC, even if you hate that crap and never tune in. Nonetheless, you are legally required to buy an annual “TV license” for about $233, which goes to subsidize BBC’s “politically approved programmes.”

If caught TV-owning without a license, first-time offenders can draw fines of $1,923 or even jail time. Repeat offenders get the Zenith thrown at ‘em, and 20 illegal TV-watchers went to prison last year.

Twenty people hittin’ the joint may seem small, but keep in mind it’s all about the money. If you’re in the Big House, you can’t pay the big bucks.

The real story lies in the fact that TV fee-evasion charges now make up 12 percent of magistrate cases nationwide, 1,000 illegal TV-watchers are caught per day — 380,000 per year — and the Telly Police are now equipped with hand-held electronic devices which can detect TV viewing while TP’s drive or stroll down the street outside.

And yes, Virginia, they do get warrants for “TV searches” based on high-tech sniffery. Nothing like having your public safety priorities in order, right?

All’s peachy unless and until they run into some armed, obstinate dude who refuses to cooperate. Then the bobbies are called. And if they’re met with a gun, they can call, ummm … well, maybe not the armed police. There may not be any around. Maybe “GhostBusters” or something.

Perhaps the suspect could be threatened with the administration of a sherry enema … See what I mean? Who needs an imagination when you’ve got the news?